Skip to main content
Main

Beef Smothered in Tomato

A stew of beef simmered slowly in a tomato sauce with onions, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Smothered in Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a stew pan.

  2. Add the chopped onion.

  3. Fry the onion slowly until it is soft.

  4. Add the strained tomatoes, salt, and pepper to the pan.

Cook the beef

  1. Stir in the beef pieces, whether cooked or uncooked.

  2. Simmer very slowly until the meat is tender.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein, which softens and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Tomatoes
Form the acidic, flavourful base of the sauce and add moisture.
Onion
Softens and adds savoury sweetness to the sauce base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onion as it fries.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly until the meat is tender. Low, gentle heat lets collagen in the beef break down slowly without toughening the muscle fibres. Rapid boiling can leave the meat firm and dry while the sauce reduces too quickly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, pepper, beef):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes